Napoleon, a few years after, bore ready and ample testimony."

"Having alluded to Madame Letitia's prominent failing, it would be unjust not to add, that she took delight in offices of kindness. Often called on to solicit her son to confer a favour, or repair an injury, she was happy whenever her exertions were crowned with success, and would herself hasten to announce to the parties the result of her application on their behalf.

"On being informed by Josephine of the arrest of the Duke d'Enghien, she flew to the Tuileries, where she made use of all the authority over the First Consul which a mother might be supposed to possess, and even threw herself on her knees, imploring mercy for the unfortunate prince. She was highly dissatisfied with Napoleon's treatment of the Pope at Fontainebleau, and would say to her brother, Cardinal Fesch, Your nephew, by pursuing this course, will ruin himself, and us too. He should stop where he is: by grasping too much, he will lose all. I have my alarms for the whole family, and think it right to provide against a rainy day!"*

After Napoleon had been banished to Elba, his mother with a few attendants followed him, and took up her residence there; but on his escape she removed to Rome, where the remainder of her life was spent. From the earliest period of his reverses, the mother's heart, with all its warmest affections, became especially centred in the son. She had often reproved him for his pride and ambition in the days

* Court and Camp of Buonaparte.

of his prosperity, and at that time she was perhaps the only friend in existence from whose lips he heard the truth; but from the time of his overthrow at Waterloo, to the day of his death, her true woman's heart never swerved from this one object of all her deepest and most absorbing interests. Again and again she offered him all that she possessed in the world, to assist in the re-establishment of his affairs. "For me," said Napoleon, in his last exile, when memories of the past so often filled his mind, "my mother would without a murmur have doomed herself to live on brown bread. Loftiness of sentiment still reigned paramount in her breast; pride and noble ambition were not yet subdued by avarice."

"Of all that Napoleon had said at St. Helena respecting his mother, Count Las Cases, on his return to Europe, witnessed the literal fulfilment. No sooner had he detailed the story of the ex-emperor's situation, than the answer returned by the courier was, that her whole fortune was at her son's disposal. In October, 1818, she addressed an affecting appeal to the allied sovereigns, assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle, on his behalf: Sires,' said she, 'I am a mother, and my son's life is dearer to me than my own. In the name of Him whose essence is goodness, and of whom your imperial and royal majesties are the image, I entreat you to put a period to his misery, and to restore him to liberty. For this, I implore God, and I implore you, who are his vicegerents on earth. Reasons of state have their limits; and posterity, which gives immortality, adores above all things the generosity of conquerors.' Again, in 1819, Napoleon

having expressed his determination not to permit the visits of an English physician, and his desire to have the company of a Catholic priest, his mother cheerfully defrayed the expenses of sending to St. Helena a mission, both physical and spiritual, of persons selected by her brother Cardinal Fesch, with the approbation of the Pope."*

This remarkable woman lived until nearly her eightieth year, still retaining much of her beauty of person, and extraordinary vigour of mind. Those who have studied her admirable contour of features, in that beautiful work of art, her bust, by Canova, will not readily forget the purity and dignity by which they are characterised; and those who study the development of feeling and affection, when associated with the sterner and grander attributes of human nature, will regard it as no mean tribute to the dignity of women-to have been loved and honoured as Napoleon Buonaparte loved and reverenced his mother.

*Court and Camp of Buonaparte.

XI.

THE MOTHER OF COWPER.

THE evidence of what can be done and of what has been accomplished by maternal influence, would scarcely appear under the most striking aspect, without some evidence on the other hand of how much the character and destiny of even highly gifted men may suffer from the want of a mother's influence, and perhaps still more from the abuse of it.

It is a melancholy thing to contemplate this want under any circumstances, but especially so where the naturally sensitive or morbid tendency of the character renders it shrinking and averse from the interference of man; and yet where it is far removed, by the severing of maternal ties, from the more tender sympathy and hence more acceptable interference of

woman.

Such must always be the case to some extent when a boy is deprived of this natural outlet for his feelings by the death of his mother. A girl can much more readily find other friends and confidants. From whatever quarter tenderness and sympathy approach her, she will learn, from the very necessity of her own being, not only to receive them with a cordial welcome, but also to yield a ready and a warm response.

But a boy cannot easily do either. He prefers to isolate himself to shut his feelings close within his heart, where they burn and smoulder without emitting light, or receiving nourishment. Women in general are nothing, can be nothing to him, until the time when he begins to look upon them with other eyes than those of childhood. There is but one woman in the whole world who can be to a boy exactly what he wants, and that woman is his mother. Most pitiable then is the young heart of an affectionate boy who has early lost his mother.

A kind and excellent father may do everything which is possible for him, to bring himself into close and entire acquaintance with his son; and the son may long to lay bare his heart before his father. A father may even think that he actually knows his son. But it may be only thinking after all; for the boy may carry, deep within his inexperienced nature, a kind of inner being-sources of feeling, and motives of action which he dare not or cannot wholly submit to the probing hand of any man. Even his boyish acquaintances-friends of his own age, and of similar habits and attainments, often do not know him as he really is, because they cannot penetrate, nor would he permit them to do so, that inner being from whence his real character in after-life will spring.

When a boy is so highly gifted as to be peculiarly brilliant or successful, he wants his mother to rejoice in his glory, because he knows that her rejoicing would be sincere. When he is particularly dull, or finds learning very difficult, he wants his mother to give him a little secret encouragement, or perhaps a

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